Name: Hollis T. Cline

Position: Professor of Cell Biology

Research Description:

Research Focus

Understanding how experience controls brain development.

My laboratory is interested in the role of sensory experience in controlling the development, function and plasticity of the visual circuit and how circuit development and function become disrupted in neurodevelopmental disorders. We conduct state of the art experiments in visual circuit development using molecular genetic manipulations, electrophysiological methods, in vivo time-lapse imaging, electron microscopy and behavior. Over the past 20 years we have demonstrated roles for a variety of activity-dependent mechanisms in controlling structural plasticity of neuronal dendrites and axons, synaptic maturation and topographic map formation. This body of work has helped to generate a comprehensive understanding of the role of experience in shaping brain development. Two key points to emerge from our research is that circuit formation in vivo is a dynamic process throughout development that is continuously guided by experience, and that the basic mechanisms governing brain development, plasticity, information processing and organizational principles of brain circuits are highly conserved across vertebrates. More recently we have begun to address the role of activity-dependent mechanisms in the development of the functional visual circuit, assessed by in vivo recordings of visual responses in intact animals and behavioral assays. This series of studies has revealed critical molecular/genetic players required for the integration of neurons into functional circuits in vivo.

Contact Information

Address:
The Scripps Research Institute
Dept. Cell Biology
10550 North Torrey Pines Road
La Jolla, CA
92037, USA

Email: cline@scripps.edu
Web Page: http://www.scripps.edu/cb/cline/cgi-bin/main.pl
Phone:  (858) 784-2220
Fax:  (858) 784-2222